The Jharkhand State Bar Council on Thursday convened an urgent meeting in the wake of shootout and murder case inside the court premises of Jamshedpur on Wednesday and took a decision to hold statewide strike on Friday. lawyers across the State would not attend to work and will observe strike against the diminishing law and order situation on Friday, Chairperson of the council Rajiv Ranjan.
He said that the lawyers would also meet Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police in all 24 districts to hand over memorandums seeking security of lawyers inside the court premises. The members of Jamshedpur Bar Association also observed a pen-down strike on Thursday to protest the shootout.
JMM leader and trader, Upendra Singh was shot dead by two gunmen at the second floor of Bar Association building in the new court
premises under Sitaramdera police station area on Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, unprecedented security arrangements were made at the Jamshedpur civil court premises on Wednesday. The visitors were frisked by the security personnel deployed at the entrance gate. Metal detectors were used in scanning bags and vehicles of both men and women.
While the policemen were busy in frisking the visitors and checking their belongings, Deputy Superintendent of Police (headquarters-I) KN Mishra, under whose jurisdiction the Sitaramdera Police Station falls inspected the court.
“We have beefed up the security arrangements after the incident. We will not allow any objectionable thing inside the civil court premises, which is a high security zone. Such security checking at the entrances will continue ,” said Mishra.
“This is the initial step for augmenting the court security which will be further increased after a meeting between the district administration and the district judge likely to be held soon. As the court premises come under the domain of judiciary, we cannot do anything without taking the court authority in confidence,” said an official.
later in the afternoon, a high level meeting of police, judicial officials and functionaries of Jamshedpur Bar Association was held at the conference hall of district and sessions judge, BB Mangalmurthy.
Aimed at enhancing security in the Jamshedpur civil court, the meeting was attended among other, East Singhbhum DC Amit Kumar, SSP Anoop T Mathew, SP Prashant Anand, Dhalbhum sub-divisional officer, Suraj Kumar and Jamshedpur Bar Association (JBA) president R N Das alongwith other lawyers.
Concerned over the shooting incident at the Jamshedpur Bar Association building on the court premises, the judicial as well as the administrative officials brainstormed on Wednesday’s incident and sought suggestion from the Bar members about the latter’s demand for a high tech security.
“We are concerned over the situation. We have demanded introduction of a high-tech security arrangement at the court premises. We have demanded for trained policemen at the security duty, electronic gates at the all the entrances, CCTV cameras at all the floors of the two Bar building and effective frisking of clients and their men at the gates. The deputy commissioner, Amit Kumar has promised to meet all this demands, but within one month time,” said the JBA president.
Though there are CCTV cameras installed at all the four entrances of the three-storeyed Civil Court complex, but there is no such surveillance camera at the two bar buildings where over 2,000 practicing lawyers sit for providing legal assistance and consultation.
Initially, there was a little presence of policemen at the entrances of the court premises, but after an abortive bid on undertrial gangster Akhilesh Singh by two armed youths last year, the administration had deputed 45 policemen at the entrances and also introduced the frisking of the visitors with apparently suspicious ones.
Significantly, a section of lawyers demanded permanent security arrangement at the civil court premises.